John O'Keeffe began his career as a singer and actor in Ireland, appearing both in Dublin and in the provincial theaters. He soon began writing songs, comic sketches, and pantomimes; by the time he moved permanently to London in 1781 he was a through professional with more than a dozen years of theatrical experience. Between his first London opening in 1778 and his last in 1798, he had more than fifty pieces, counting revisions and adaptations, produced on the London stage. His most successful works were two-and three-act comic operas: The Son-in-Law, The Agreeable Surprise, The Poor Soldier, and Peeping Tom of Coventry were enormously popular afterpieces, both in London and out of it, for two generations. They propped many a lugubrious tragedy and many a sentimental "drama" both in O'Keeffe's day and after it, and made him Isaac Bickerstaff's successor as perhaps the most widely performed dramatist of his generation...